Sunday, November 24, 2024

I Found You


I'd have to place the moment somewhere around 14 months ago — it was a casual social media or podcast reference recommending Fred again..'s Tiny Desk Concert. I knew of Fred. I knew of Tiny Desk's general vibe. But what came of the pairing was something I hadn't anticipated. The entirety of the near-half hour set is impeccable in its gentle brilliance and delivery, and I can't recommend it enough, but The Moment for me came 28 seconds in.

The first song of the Tiny Desk set is one called "Kyle (i found you)," which is complemented by a visual accompaniment on a screen in the background, behind Fred, syncing visuals of a poet — a poet named Kyle — sampled and mixed to accentuate a rumbling of tender piano. It's beautiful. It absolutely is. But that's not the "holy shit" thing about it for me. I'm revisiting it again now, as I write this, and again I'm overwhelmed by it. I used to know Kyle. Our paths crossed for a while when I lived up in Minneapolis. I was in bad shape at that stage of life though. I made a lot of mistakes in those years and burned many bridges on my way out when I left town, but in the few exchanges I had with Kyle in the years that followed he never seemed to hold anything against me. I always appreciated that. And when I saw that moment on the Tiny Desk video, a strong feeling of pride came rushing to and through me. I'd lost track of his work somewhere over the past few years, but man, was this ever one hell of a way to be reminded of someone from your past.

In the most recent update to his Red Hand Files series, Nick Cave recalled recent experiences on the road with his band, writing, "The world had grown thoroughly disenchanted, and its feverish obsession with politics and its leaders had thrown up so many palisades that had prevented us from experiencing the presence of anything remotely like the spirit, the sacred, or the transcendent - that holy place where joy resides. I felt proud to have been touring with The Bad Seeds and offering, in the form of a rock ‘n ’roll show, an antidote to this despair, one that transported people to a place beyond the dreadful drama of the political moment." For me, Fred again..'s music is an antidote to despair, and to see him re-contextualize a familiar voice in a way that delivers a worthy message to a whole new audience awakened within me a feeling of revived spirit.

About two months ago Fred again.. played the Target Center in Minneapolis. The Target Center, for those who don't know, is the big arena that overlooks and dwarfs First Avenue. First Avenue, for those who don't know, is a special place. And for that show, in the big sports arena, across from the city's spiritual center, Fred gave the stage to Kyle. As a fan, I can't express how proud of him. I wasn't there, but even watching a clip of it on YouTube inspires within me a much needed break from the collective despair Cave mentioned.

Kyle performs and makes music under the name of Guante. He and his longtime collaborator Big Cats released a new album titled All Dressed Up, No Funeral this past summer, but they're only just now celebrating it with a proper release show. Theirs was the last show I saw in Minneapolis before I left the city, and I wish I could be there as they once again take the stage together. The new album is solid, led by a strong opener, "Whatever You Do, Don​’​t Put the Words ‘Climate Crisis’ in the Title," but for more context I also added my favorite track of theirs to this week's mix (the YouTube version, at least, as it's not on Spotify). I also suggest you check out his website, as you might appreciate some of his other work (hell, you might have already come across it, and didn't even know it!).

As best I can recall, the first time I saw Guante perform was at a pro-union street festival in the summer of 2009 called One Day in July. While I moved on to another event after his set that day, in doing so I missed out on seeing another of Minneapolis' finest perform as Brother Ali headlined the event. I started feeling an itch of Twin Cities nostalgia last week after spending some time with a Nardwuar interview with Ali, but I've since dug myself deeper into that feeling by immersing myself in some of his most recent work. Beyond his collaboration with producer unJUST, which was featured on last week's update, this week's mix bears a track from Ali's forthcoming full-length release, set to drop in February. Included here is my favorite from a handful of tracks released as a primer for what's to come, titled "Head Heart Hands." Additionally, another track of his is included, titled "Uncle Sam Goddamn" from his 2007 album, The Undisputed Truth. While Ali has, himself, moved on — having relocated to Turkey nearly a decade ago — he kept the Twin Cities connection going by linking up with longtime Atmosphere producer Ant for the upcoming project. For those interested in hearing more from the latter, Ant just released an album of his own in the form of Collection of Sounds: Volume 1, which dropped in September via Rhymesayers.

A recurring theme in my life while growing up was that of owning a lot of music, but rarely listening to much of it. What I mean is, I'd buy an album to listen to a track or two, while saving my full-album binges for artists I cherished. This week I revisited one such album, which I certainly owned in the past, though had failed to ever fully listen to — that being Orbital's In Sides (available on Amazon).

Aphex Twin recently released a pair of remixes to his mind-bending single, "Blackbox Life Recorder 21f" (I can't recommend the music video for this song enough, in case you haven't seen it), but they both drifted by me without consequence. What they did do was inspire an appetite for some '90s electronic music; cue In Sides. It's not so much that I have a memory of buying the album, but rather that it just appeared in my life. Its cover is sticky in the way hazy dreams are sometimes hard to shake — I vividly recall the feeling and general makeup of it, though its exact details evade me. I most definitely picked up In Sides somewhere around the time the English duo found success with "The Saint" (it's kind of wild to think about how espionage-chic was a thing for a minute; like, the Propellerheads did well by leveraging a retro aesthetic and James Bond vibes; crazy, huh?), but that's largely where I stopped with my exploration of it.

In now listening to In Sides, it creates a much more clear picture of the duo's sound during that period than "The Saint" would otherwise paint. The album's proper single, "The Box," is strong (as is its video, which is ripe with '90s electronica visuals and also somehow eluded me 'til now) and it has a glitchy track, in the form of "Petrol," which helped satisfy my thirst for '90s Aphex Twin. "Adnan" is the pick I went with for this week's mix though, as I appreciate how it progressively builds across its nearly nine minute run-time; orchestrating a layered bed of sound in the process that left me frustrated I hadn't given it the time of day all those years ago.

Listen to Razz Dazz Weekly on Spotify or YouTube

  1. Guante "The Hero" (produced by Big Cats)
  2. Brother Ali "Uncle Sam Goddamn"
  3. Kendrick Lamar "reincarnated"
  4. Blockhead "Orgy At The Port Authority"
  5. Naughts "Obnoxious"
  6. Orbital "Adnans"
  7. Ab-Soul "All That"
  8. Big Cats & Guante "Whatever You Do, Don't Put the Words 'Climate Crisis' in the Title"
  9. Brother Ali & Ant "Head Heart Hands"
  10. Amyl and The Sniffers "Chewing Gum"

Monday, November 18, 2024

Ground Control


"That's the thing about him, he really can perform at a high level. So when he did that stuff that he did – and he did do it, I was there, too, when he was on stage and his mic wasn't connected and there's lyrics coming out [...] it's not that he's lazy and it's not that he can't perform, it's really that he wants it to be about the music to where anybody could be DOOM, as long as the music is DOOM." This comment from an old Nardwuar interview with Brother Ali is something I think of regularly when listening to MF DOOM (which is, itself, something I do regularly), though out of context it might not make much sense. In the interview, Ali talks about his interactions with the MC, granting him a generous amount artistic grace regarding his long-held tradition of pulling stunts like using a stand-in on stage. I could only ever gawk at that sort of thing at one point in time, but the older I get, the harder it is for me to draw any conclusive boundaries around what it means to be an "authentic" artist. Even if as little artifice as possible ends up in the final product of an artistic work, how much of any creation is only ever a performance of an idea? And can any performance then be authentic? And who am I to judge any of this anyway?

This week Rhymesayers dropped an updated version of MF DOOM's album MM..FOOD, commemorating the 20th anniversary of its release. Listening to it has me thinking about and reflecting on a lot of things, including that Ali interview, what it means to be a "performer," and how perceived "authenticity" influences my appreciation for a work. The other day I was listening to something that mentioned Dwight Yoakam's new album, which apparently features a Post Malone collaboration. I know next to nothing about Post Malone, but I still don't like him. I'm willing to be swayed from that position, but the point of bringing him up here is to share how much I've been turned off of him by my own interpretation of his transition from rapper to country star. To me, an ill-informed outsider, he seems to have capitalized on cultural trends both coming and going. But, to challenge myself, even if he is cosplaying every step along the way, what distinguishes the product of his creativity as any less "authentic" than anyone else doing nearly the same damn thing?

Adult Swim was my gateway to DOOM's music and DANGER DOOM was the starting point for me becoming a fan of the MC. As much as that album still stands on its own legs musically, it was absolutely benefited by DOOM's persona when it was released. And for as much as I'd like to say I'm a fan of the broader work of Daniel Dumile, the man behind the mask, I'm really not. I'm fine with KMD, but their music was never really for me. Instead, I have to be real that I'm probably more a fan of the persona than I ever was the person. I'm a fan of the concept. I'm a fan of the execution. Dumile wasn't dull to this and was vocal that DOOM's fanbase didn't care about him so much as they cared about the mask he wore. That said, when he passed a few years ago I was really shook. It felt like something more than a man had died.

While FOOD isn't my favorite DOOM release, its Mr. Fantastik collab titled "Rapp Snitch Knishes" remains one of my most played DOOM tracks. The song lyrically roasts cred-thirsty rappers for flaunting crimes in their songs (to their own detriment, no less), but musically it picks up on an unshakable earworm of a sample that speaks to how sharp DOOM was as a producer. It wasn't until this past week that I looked into where its guitar sample came from, which turns out to be lifted from a musician named David Matthews. More specifically it came from Matthews' disco-infused cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," released on an intergalactic concept album called Dune, which also featured an equally bizarre interpretation of the Star Wars theme. Weird as all that might seem, the context surrounding such an obscure track feels right at home with why I've come to love DOOM.

While my only experience working at a record store to this point is brief, it still afforded me ample opportunity to make mistakes. I have this one memory of talking with this cute girl about hip-hop and recommending an album to her. I'm not sure what we were talking about specifically, but it must've been boom bap or some backpack rapper stuff, because I suggested she pick up a Homeboy Sandman album. Surely there was a part of me that wanted to impress her, but it didn't quite go the way I'd planned. I don't recall which album it was, but she paid for it and took it home with her. Now, I liked a few Homeboy Sandman tracks, but I didn't love his stuff. Nor did I really even know much of it. I guess I just thought the somewhat-obscure recommendation would garner me bonus points even if it didn't hit just right. The next time I saw her in the store though, she was like, "Nah, that wasn't for me," and went about her business flipping through the racks by herself. That soured my stomach. My failed performance had backfired.

It's strange, the memories that stick with us. That's an interaction I can't seem to shake. There's no way to go back in time and be more honest with myself and that girl, but what I can do is be more honest now. This week's update features music from the upcoming solo release from TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, a song from the Cinematic Orchestra's score to a century-old paradigm changing silent film, and homegrown selections from Iowa's Husoul and Why Bother? It also includes a Beastie Boys remix from a disc I had up for sale in my online store. (In a stroke of coincidence the CD I had sold several days ago, so technically I'm not here to sell anyone that album. but regardless...) One of the roles I'm inching my way closer toward is that of a salesperson, whether I like it or not. And as that becomes a thing for me, I anticipate it will come with its fair share of performance. Unlike how I played that one interaction with that girl however, I want how I proceed to come from a place of honesty. And honestly, I like all this stuff.

I shared a little about my goals with this playlist series in last week's update, and am realizing just how much more work I have to do to get comfortable with where it is I'm heading. About a week ago I listened to the Root Down EP, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this particular remix of the song, despite how tired I've become of the Beastie Boys over the past several years. I don't mean that I've soured on 'em or anything, just that their music isn't really where I'm at right now. Well, most of it, but not all of it. Wound throughout their catalog are these odd, funky, jammy instrumentals that have become what I enjoy most of theirs at this stage in my life. This remix sounds largely attuned to that particular vibe, and I thought that if I was going to play the part of salesman this week and share something that I liked from the shop, I'd better be authentic with it. This is a lesson best learned later than never, I suppose.

Listen to Razz Dazz Weekly on Spotify or YouTube

  1. Tunde Adebimpe "Magnetic"
  2. Why Bother? "Chasing the Skull"
  3. Beastie Boys "Root Down (Free Zone Mix)"
  4. Tyler, the Creator feat. Doechii "Balloon"
  5. Husoul "be there for you."
  6. MF DOOM feat. Mr. Fantastik "Rapp Snitch Knishes"
  7. Ab-Soul feat. Blxst "The Sky is Limitless"
  8. The Cinematic Orchestra "The Awakening of a Woman (Burnout)"
  9. Conductor Williams feat. Benny the Butcher & Wiz Khalifa "Hold You"
  10. Brother Ali & unJUST "Nom De Plume"

Man with a Movie Camera


"Attention viewers," reads the intertitle introducing Man with a Movie Camera, "This film is an experiment in cinematic communication of real events." What follows, we are lead to believe, is the cinema of the real...

Around New Year’s in 2007 I took my first trip to New York City. A lot happened in the two weeks I was there, but the parts relevant here include stops at the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. At MOMA I remember watching a short film capturing a Rube Goldberg machine called The Way Things Go. I was transfixed by it. It was raw, but exuded so much ingenuity; "real," despite it being a wholly constructed staging of events. Then, at the Guggenheim, I was witness to the "most comprehensive and significant exhibition of Russian art outside Russia since the end of the Cold War." The reds. The blacks. The darkness of it all, aesthetically and thematically. Many of the paintings I saw only continued to exist because they were hidden away during times where creative works were being destroyed en masse. It affected me in a very distinct way, impressing upon me a respect for how much art was used in the country as a counter-narrative to tyranny. Fast forward about 12 years and everything I felt during those experiences would find their spiritual relative in the form of Man with a Movie Camera.

"When this began rolling I thought I was in for an hour of actual silence," reads the first line of a recap I wrote after my initial viewing of the film in March of 2019. "'A great way to fall asleep,' I thought to myself. Then the flicker of light, the direction of the composer, and the introduction of the soundtrack by The Cinematic Orchestra. Granted, Man with a Movie Camera wasn’t intended to be viewed alongside a score by a British jazz fusion duo, but then again it also wasn’t meant to be watched on a big ass flat screen in my living room while I lay on my couch in sweatpants." For good or bad, this was my introduction.

The film, itself, becomes more impressive when considering the story of its creator Dziga Vertov, but that isn't what first captivated me. And this is where I might lose any film purists, but the symphony of motion on display in Man with a Movie Camera was brought even further to life by the soundtrack I heard accompanying it, as provided by the aforementioned Cinematic Orchestra. Initially commissioned to score the film for a live performance, the music's celebrated reception led to a full-blown album and DVD release, issued in 2003 to blend the film and music in perpetuity.

After first watching it the way I did, I can't now view Man with a Movie Camera in its silent form, or even with any other orchestration accompanying it. I've tried. To me, the film is tied to the music, and the music is now tied to me. For the next half-year following my first viewing, I watched the film monthly. And over the past five years since that first viewing, I'd wager that there isn't an album I've listened to more than Man with a Movie Camera. I'm not much of a collector these days, but I do have the original Ninja Tune DVD. And this past January I bought a 20th anniversary special edition vinyl release of the album (signed, no less). I can't think of a piece of music that has wormed its way into my life in recent memory quite the way this has.

One hundred years after the fact, we continue to find ourselves at odds with technology, much the same way I envision Vertov did in his day. A more recent struggle comes with the ambiguity surrounding how to define what a photograph even is, among an age of technological wizardry that can remove a rendered image so far away from its source that it no longer relates to the lifescape it purports to have captured. Man with a Movie Camera challenged not merely what reality is, but whether such a thing could even exist in celluloid form. All throughout the film, what is captured and related is three-fold: footage of events, footage of the events being filmed, and film of the events after being edited. The combination brings about an otherworldly presentation of every day life in a way I've never really seen before or since.

The editing truly was ahead of its time, and the collage of humanity on display was as brazenly avant-garde as anything that would follow in its footsteps for decades to come. I don't fancy myself much of a movie critic, but when considering all the different aspects of Man with a Movie Camera's production, I can't help but wager that it's one of the most historically relevant pieces of cinema created. If it hadn't existed, one can only imagine how long it would have taken for the film world to catch up, if it even would've. To quote the film's Wikipedia entry, "Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals." All of that was delivered unprecedented in this one single 68 minute long creative behemoth.

Vertov held an anti-fiction vendetta, hell-bent on creating a "real" work that would capture and dazzle with more creative imagery than any fictional work of its time ever could. The execution of this vision was immaculate, as was its soundtrack which followed some 70 years after the fact. What better compliment is there for a film score than to say it helps make the film itself better? Perhaps saying that without it the film has, for me at least, now become unimaginable.

[This article is part of Best of the Best - an ongoing series reflecting on and ranking my favorite music and movies.]

Saturday, November 9, 2024

Enough of the Unknown


"Once upon a time, a wild god zoomed / All through his memory in which he was entombed"

-Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Wild God"

In corporate terms, what I've started here would be referred to as an "iterative" process, a small business owner seeking to define pathways toward "cross-platform success." I hate how much this sort of jargon has infected my thinking. The other day at work, something slipped out of my mouth and my supervisor commented on how it's hard for each of us to shake the verbal tics we picked up while working at start-up companies. It's true. Call it by any other name, but what I'm doing here is still, at its core, "digital marketing."

When defining my goal in public it feels so crass. I want people to buy stuff from me so I can support myself. I want to support myself by way of a path I've decided to take, rather than one I've landed on out of financial necessity. Furthermore, I want people to listen to read or listen to what I have to say. I want to develop an "audience." Many foolhardy influencers call themselves "curators" when they are nothing of the sort. They are share-ers: They consume and share so that others can consume and share. And I suppose that's what my hope is here: To share so that others will consume. Everyone everywhere is vying for attention with all things created and shared online. I want some of that attention, too. The hope is a few of the people whose attention I attract become customers. Maybe patrons. Hell, maybe friends. These are, after all, unprecedented times we're living through.

The connection between a playlist and a retail store might, at present time, only be a theoretical one, but I figure that's quite alright. In 2022 I started what has become an online store. Calling it a "strategy" might be generous, but the thought was that if I could develop online sales to cover expenses for an offline business, then maybe it would be possible to make that work. If I could do that, then maybe a business selling music and movies in a small midwestern city would have potential. I've never owned a business. My projections were largely arbitrary. I didn't know what steps would be necessary or which order they'd need to be taken in. I thought maybe in five years I'd be able to transition away from an office job and do this thing full-time. From there, maybe I could figure out what's needed to open a physical space. Surely the build would be slow, I imagined, selling disc media in a digital society. But this year it all escalated faster than I imagined it could. Five years has turned into six months. I plan on taking my next big leap in the spring by trying to do whatever "this" is becoming on a full-time basis.

In preparation for that I want this digital space to support whatever physical space might present itself. I want anything I write or share here to be true of where I've come from and how I arrived. More specific to the music shared below, I want this playlist to reflect music I'm listening to, not merely music I'm selling. But I do want it to reflect that, too. I want to share what I think is good so that whoever is willing to listen will start to follow along with me.

This first playlist covers a lot of territory. It picks up from around the time I put an end to a music blog I had called villin, and features several acts that I found in the months which followed. Little Simz and Glass Beams are included in that category, and to some degree Fred again.. and Chase & Status are, as well. The latter two are artists I've listened to off and on in the past, but this year I leaned back in heavily following TikTok recommendations, regularly swiping myself to sleep. The algorithm makes the world go round.

On a recent episode of Uproxx's IndieCast podcast, the new Jamie xx album was referred to catering to a basic base of electronic fans, or something like that. I haven't put much thought into what a basic electronic music fan might be, but I'm fine with that label. I don't want to listen to experimental music when I'm driving to work or going to the gym. I want to listen to Chase & Status. I want to listen to Alison Wonderland. I want to listen to Jamie xx and Fred again.. This isn't to say I'm only seeking bass drops or "basic" sounds. Four Tet is a perennial favorite of mine and this spring's Three is a release has stuck with me this year. I wouldn't consider that "basic." Similarly, and despite her breakout year and widespread success, I wouldn't consider Charlie xcx's "365" remix basic. Whatever though. This one's a strange listen. It stood out to me and stuck with me not merely of its own merits, but because of how much it reminded me of another space and time. More specifically it reminded me of "Jericho" from the Prodigy's 1992 Experience release. The label makes no difference: What is basic to some is all the same a challenge to others.

Two more albums released over the past couple months stood out to me as options that I'd love to stock (on the shelves of this imaginary store I'm building toward). Wild God from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Songs of a Lost World by the Cure are both magical records. Each of them create a feeling of conflict for myself as a share-er as there isn't a particular track or two that stand out to me as "the one" I prefer to share here. The songs are of an album, the album is not of its songs. The same holds true for Kelly Lee Owens' ethereal Dreamstate, though each release is brilliant in drastically different ways.

Unique on this playlist is "Upon Sober Reflection" from Japandroids. This song has stuck with me the past couple weeks for a different reason. Beyond a couple past tracks ("No Known Drink or Drug," "Fire's Highway," "Young Hearts Spark Fire") I haven't kept close tabs on the band, but was still surprised to learn that the Canadian duo put this new collection out as a means of bookending their time together. No tour would follow. No press, really. They just put out Fate & Alcohol and called it a day. The writer who I learned of the release from asked himself a question about their process which led me to listening which led me to writing this. A version of his question is akin to something I've thought about for myself and writing I've done in the past. He asked what the point was of creating this music then moving on, full stop. I've considered that before. When creating a work, does the creator then owe it to that piece - even if only as a sign of respect - to market it to one's fullest capabilities? Like, as a creator, in promoting a work you're honoring that effort and that creation by putting it in front of as big an audience as you can, maybe? I don't know. I guess I don't think that's true. Spirit exists, divorced of reception. Spirit also exists as a concept severed from any potential audience. In this case, the band created something in a way that was meaningful to them, or they wouldn't have gone through with it. It's no one's business but theirs to define whether an album of music achieved its goal based on how much of the story around the album is explained. It just is. We just are. Temporarily. All of us.

The weeks pass. As they go, in the moment, there is at times a hyper-awareness of that moment. It can be unbearable. Why won't it pass more quickly. Why must tomorrow remain, seemingly, forever out of grasp.

"Once this ends," I think to myself, "then things will be different." As if the passing of time will bring about ideal circumstances where the days will yield optimal satisfaction, where inspiration will bloom and motivation is in high supply. I can't wait for x to be over so I can begin to enjoy y.

But looking back, the adage of the journey and the destination seem to hold true. There is no end point. Tomorrow is just the projection of an ideal, a ghostly carrot dangled in front of the the ego's eye, coaxing it out of the present moment and into a space where gratitude, understanding, and mindfulness are each disregarded. Today is only about survival; a necessary step to reach the goal of tomorrow.

Listen to Razz Dazz Weekly on Spotify or YouTube

  1. Little Simz "Gorilla"
  2. Spark Master Tape "$tandby"
  3. Lord Apex feat. Freddie Gibbs "Phoenix"
  4. Cookin Soul "Gotham Nights"
  5. Mogwai "God Gets You Back"
  6. The Cure "I Can Never Say Goodbye"
  7. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Wild God"
  8. Kelly Lee Owens "Love You Got"
  9. Alison Wonderland "Down The Line"
  10. Glass Beams "Kong"
  11. Jamie xx "Still Summer"
  12. Fred again.. feat. Jozzy & Jim Legxacy "ten"
  13. Jamie xx & the Avalanches "All You Children"
  14. Four Tet "Skater"
  15. Japandroids "Upon Sober Reflection"
  16. Chase & Status feat. Hedex & ArrDee "Liquor & Cigarettes"
  17. Charlie xcx feat. Skygirl "365"
  18. Jungle "Dominoes"
  19. Caribou "Come Find Me"
  20. Fred again.. feat. Obongjayar "adore u"